This story was published in the Aug. 30, 1977, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.
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HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Texaco, Inc., apparently is going out of the gasoline business in Montana, northern Idaho, eastern Washington and western North Dakota, primarily because of a shortage of Canadian crude oil, a state official confirmed Monday.
The decision means the area will have no Texaco service stations within a few years, speculated John Braunbeck, fuel allocation officer for the Montana Energy Research and Conservation Office.
Braunbeck said he has been given little information from Texaco officials, but has talked to “quite a few local dealers and some of the area representatives of Texaco.”
Braunbeck said he is trying to determine what effects the pullout will have on the area.
“It means the loss of one of our major marketers in petroleum products in Montana and we are understandably concerned,” Braunbeck said.
Texaco for some time has been asking its retail dealers in the four-state Northwest area to buy the stations that they now lease and to find new suppliers, according to Billingsarea dealers.
The Billings dealers said they are being given the choice of buying their stations or losing them.
A statement issued by Texaco in Los Angeles in response to newsmen’s queries said: “Because of the lower supply of crude oil available to make refined products in the Billings area, Texaco has found it necessary to restrict its marketing” in the four-state area.
The statement said Texaco is helping its 247 retailers and 85 wholesalers in the affected area find alternate suppliers and will honor existing contracts.
Texaco’s acting division manager for Montana, C.B. Barningham of Billings, said he would not refer to Texaco’s plans as a “pullout,” but agreed the changes are probably due to the shortage of Canadian crude oil.
“We are not taking on any new customers in the state — wholesale, new farm accounts, any new business,” Barningham said. “In other words, we don’t have the products; consequently, we have to restrict the amount of new business we take on.
“Texaco is offering to sell them (the dealers) the properties.” He said that if the dealers “can’t find other suppliers, they’ll continue to operate under the Texaco sign.”
Barningham said he did not know how many retail stations or wholesalers Texaco has in each of the four states.
Barningham said Texaco gets some of its refined products for the Northwest area from its own refinery in Casper, Wyo., and buys some from the Exxon refinery in Billings. Oil refineries in Billings depend largely on crude supplies from Canada. Barningham said he did not know where the Casper refinery gets its crude oil.
